


His Brother's Smile

by Sanctioned_Chaos



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Also Robb, And Semi-Incest, Anyway Slash, Basically everyone else except Jon, Because how else would you even write that, Catelyn is only mentioned, Depending on who is to be believed, Give it a read lovelies, Honestly with me I wouldn't be surprised, I feel like all my GOT fics only mention Robb, I'll feel like I accomplished something, I'm pretty sure this is general audiences, M/M, Maybe when I write a smutty one Robb will actually be in it, Right?, So is Ned, i'll stop now, is only mentioned, oh well, so you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7960480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctioned_Chaos/pseuds/Sanctioned_Chaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robb was his, only his, though never actually being his.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>Yes, well, as you can tell(hehe that rhymed), Jon is not, at all, being just a little bit possessive. But hey, not that any of us are complaining, am I right? *nudge nudge*</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Brother's Smile

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened. Literally woke up from a nap, was opening the fridge to get a drink of water, and this wonderful idea popped into my head. Yeah, I wrote this, and re-read it to check for errors, fixed those errors, edited grammar and other shtuff, but I'm not perfect guys. This isn't beta-read so please just forgive the author for any mistakes she made. Unless you're gonna say this whole fic was a mistake then... Well, I'd prefer that didn't happen. Anyway, I hope you guys like it. Kindly read and review. Don't bee too judgmental (yes I did that intentionally). Please don't let my blatant misspelling right there dissuade you from giving this story a go. I promise, I didn't do that while I was writing(probably). 
> 
> Disclaimer: No character, setting, or object belongs to me, nor do I make any sort of monetary profit from it. All rights go to their respective owners, and if any idea I've written sounds eerily familiar, or simply is familiar, to that of another author's story detail, please know I did it unintentionally, and if worst come to worst, I can be persuaded to remove it from the story. Otherwise, if it sounds familiar, message me for credits.

Jon is a bastard. It is a well-known fact of Winterfell.

He did not know his mother. Would that he did, he would not have hated her. Whether she was some highborn lady infatuated with his father, or a lowly whore Eddard Stark had only used as a sheath, it didn’t matter. (He sincerely doubted it was the latter, Lord Stark was not the kind of man to take a stranger to bed.) He would have loved her.

Jon knows he is a bastard.

He does not know this simply because he can see no feature of the Lady Catelyn’s in him, or because he has heard the whispered tale of his arrival falling from the mouths of gossiping servants. He knows this, because no true-born would have thoughts about their brother like Jon had about Robb.

He remembers the short, blissful, while when he thought only of Robb as his lord brother. But the days when they grappled as young boys, and Jon thought nothing of it(at least until he heard the Lady Catelyn’s indignant screeching at him trouncing her eldest son), were days long lost to time. He supposes, if he really thought about it, Jon’s view on the future lord of Winterfell had changed on their eleventh nameday.

Robb had forced him to secretly agree to sharing the day of his birth long before, since Jon didn’t know his. The rest of the castle couldn’t know about it, lest Robb’s lady mother despise Jon more than she already did, but that hadn’t bothered the two of them before. As per usual, a great celebration was held for Robb, and as per usual, Jon was on his way to the young lord’s bedroom. It’d become a sort of tradition between them during that time of the year for the former to wake Robb up to greet the day. Jon let his brother believe it was because he was an early riser and not that it was because he always had a multitude of things assigned to him in the morning, to be awake at such an ungodly hour

He remembers allowing himself an unabashed smile as he’d walked purposefully through the halls. The staff were too busy to concern themselves with him, and Lady Catelyn was no doubt leading the placement of decorations in the great hall, so he could let his happiness go unperturbed. Jon can remember the realization that something was wrong upon finding the sight of Robb’s bedroom door unlocked and slightly ajar. Robb always locked his door, _always_. Unlike Jon who’d gotten over his fear of the dark at the tender age of four when one of the serving children had cruelly locked him in Winterfell’s unlit crypts for hours, Robb had feared something only he saw in the obsidian depths. Jon never teased him about it, he’d respected his brother so wholly even back then, and besides, he had an inkling as to the reason of it. Lord Eddard had had to behead two deserters once, and they’d both been there to see it. Their pleading screams had echoed only briefly in the night, but in Robb, they continued to haunt him.

He would have rushed through the open door, to make sure no possible threat had caused his brother any harm, but the sounds of a heated argument had reached his ears before his body could have moved. He was certain Lady Catelyn was there, the familiar tone and pitch of her screeching couldn’t have been anyone else’s. It was the second voice that had him stepping back in shock.

Robb had never yelled at his mother. Not once.

The heavy wood of the door had distorted whatever was being said(yelled), but Jon heard the silence more than he heard their harsh words. He had stepped back even further at the sight of Lady Catelyn exiting the room, dresses and hair only slightly disheveled. She’d fixed him a scathing glare on her way out, but that didn’t bother him as much as the sight of a very much awake Robb, leaning tiredly on his bedpost. After that, Jon remembers being solemnly told that he’d been forbidden not only from eating in the hall during the celebration, but that he was also forbidden from being any part of it at all. Robb’s lady mother had insisted that the future lord of Winterfell could not be seen with the bastard of it. Apparently, she’d also screeched that Robb was far too old to be pushing for his brother’s company. Robb had cried silently as he recounted the conversation, fat tears falling from his face as he leaned against Jon.

They both knew that he wasn’t so much crying about not being able to celebrate with Jon that night, but at the loss of the one thing Lady Catelyn hadn’t been able to take from the two of them. They were barely seeing each other enough already. Jon remembers piecing Robb back together for the coming ceremony, remembers watching the Robb’s stiff back as he walked out the door to the waiting Ser Rodrik. He remembers bawling as soon as the door was shut and his brother was gone, and he remembers sitting numbly on Robb’s white sheets as the hours passed by.

But, that wasn’t what had made him see his brother in a new light.

That was something that happened as he was staring up at the ceiling of his tiny bedroom, sheets heavily wrinkled from his tossing and turning, and nowhere near as perfectly white as Robb’s had been. (It was hard for him to get every stain all by himself.)

He remembers trying to picture a life where he wasn’t a bastard, a life where he was Lord Stark’s true-born son. But he could conjure nothing. For it would mean that he was Lady Catelyn’s son as well, he would have the same auburn or brown hair his brothers and sisters had instead of the shaggy black mop situated on his head. He could look his father in the eye without feeling ashamed or unworthy, and most of all… He’d never be separated from Robb.

Robb, who was now opening the creaky doorway into his small room. Robb, who was supposed to be sound asleep in bed after a night of raucous celebrating. Robb, who had braved the silent dark of the castle to be at his side. Robb, who grinned at him sheepishly, but happily, as he brought a small tart from around his back. Robb, who crawled into his bed beside him, singing quietly and merrily as Jon choked with the force his brother had shoved the sweet thing into his mouth. Robb, who touched his forehead to Jon’s, and smiling, swore that they would always be brothers. ~~Robb, who was beautiful even though he was a boy, soon to be a man, with his dark curls that burned as he pictured dragons' fire would, in the sunlight~~. Robb, who was quick-witted and intelligent, getting them out of trouble as much as he got them in. Robb, who was perfect and good and had fallen asleep on Jon’s shoulder, buried snugly into his side (the sheets were thin and even with the small fire he had going in the corner, winter was fast approaching).

Gazing at his brother’s sleeping face, so peaceful and trusting despite being so far from the safety of his own room, in the only lit parts of the castle so deep into the night, Jon remembered resting his own head against Robb’s curls. He remembered breathing in his brother’s scent, wrapping his arms around Robb’s frame, and finally, _finally_ , feeling the soothing embrace of sleep. Jon remembers his last coherent thoughts before he was lost in a dreamless dark.

_I’ll never let you go, Robb. Not to anyone. I’ve always been yours, but now you’re mine too. Don’t ever leave me, brother. Be mine forever. Anything else, and I’ll go as mad as a Targaryen before long._

And with the memory of that day, of Robb’s warm smile, Jon feels a familiar heat grow inside him, rivaling the cold bite of the Wall he stands guard over. He truly doesn’t know what would happen if he lost his brother, his other. Contrary to popular belief, especially at Winterfell, Jon was not as kind and forgiving as he seemed. He may be called Snow, but he was more Fire than should be found in the North. A blazing flame tempered only by Robb’s Ice, his comfort. His presence.

Robb seemed kissed by flame, evident in his auburn locks and glowing nature. But he was born in the North, in the midst of a snowstorm, raised in its frigid embrace, and not the scariest of the two, despite how quickly his demeanor would change when his family was threatened. Jon was a bastard, a Snow, quiet and typically slow to anger, but he was born in the burning South, and “more Stark than the rest of them’. He was the one to be most feared. Yes, his anger was slow, even when he was insulted and ridiculed, it was only a temporary state he would go into, never really lasting. But where Robb was concerned, his wrath nearly always raged wholly. Robb was his, only his, though never actually _being_ his.

Jon Snow knows he is a bastard. Not because of the details of his birth, or because of the intricacies of his feelings for his half-brother. He is a bastard because he _knows_ the world will not survive should Robb ever be lost to him. Jon Snow is a bastard because inside him burns an all-consuming flame. One that will burn Westeros and Essos to cinders without the comfort of his brother’s smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it was short, I know. Or too long maybe for some of you that hated it. But yeah, I'm fairly sure I lied about something in the disclaimer. Namely, the object part. I think I technically have the artistic license to that tart dear Robb had. I also think I probably used that 'artistic license' thing just now wrong. Eh. Do comment darlings, otherwise I'm typically disheartened as to the quality of my literary works. Also, kudos are very much appreciated.


End file.
